Pet Snake Could Be Worth A Million

As a natural wonder, it falls somewhere between a weeping statue and a potato that looks like Richard Nixon - not quite a religious experience but perhaps a notch above Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

The Burmese python whose markings spell “WIN MILLIONS” is a natural phenomenon that may have a future at Las Vegas or the Washington State Lottery, says the snake’s local promoter, pet shop owner Michael Blain.

The 3-foot-long female python is on display at Blain’s Domestic Dinosaurs in Fairhaven. He swears the snake’s skin has not been colored or tattooed and says he’d even submit the python to a DNA test if it would help authenticate the find.

“I have never really seen a letter on a snake, let alone this,” said Blain, a reptile expert.

“Even I passed it off (as a fake) until I saw it.”

He envisions the snake on display at a casino or in a lottery ad, offering gamblers a bit of magic, a bit of luck.

Blain doesn’t own the snake, but calls himself its promoter. The owner, a local man who does not want to be identified, bought the captive-bred reptile about six months ago, Blain said.

The odds of animal markings forming coherent words are almost incalculable, said Paul Sampson, a University of Washington statistician.

The associate professor said he has never contemplated the question of a snake’s markings, but that the probability “would be so small it would be unbelievable.”